Madame Wheelbarrow
by rebecca-in-blue
Summary: "Cosette would never really know how many lives her father had touched." A story about Valjean, Cosette, a stranger, and little things that come to mean much more.


Inspired by an inscription that I read on a real grave (and stole for this story), by the prompt for this month's one-shot contest at Caesar's Palace (little match girl), and by the poem "A Celebration of George Sarton," by his daughter, May Sarton. I wanted to read that poem at my dad's funeral, but I didn't trust myself to keep it together.

For my own reference: 95th fanfiction, 21st story for _Les Miserables_.

* * *

Cosette was still quite young when she and Valjean saw the woman with the wheelbarrow for the first time. She was fourteen, and she and Valjean had just left the convent and settled into their new house on Rue Plumet. They made a habit of taking walks every day through the park near their home.

They first met the woman one autumn afternoon when they were sitting on a park bench beneath a tree whose leaves were all aflame with reds and oranges. Cosette saw her first. "Papa, look," she said suddenly, tugging on Valjean's sleeve.

Valjean startled at her words and looked all around them, almost in a panic. Cosette had noticed that he sometimes did this when they went out in public, as if he expected to see someone that he didn't like. She couldn't imagine why. But he relaxed when she pointed out across the grass and added, "Do you see that woman pushing a wheelbarrow? I wonder what she has in it."

But Cosette didn't have to wonder for long. A gravel path for strollers wound all through the park, and one curve passed near the bench where she and Valjean sat. The path was bordered with a small wooden ridge that kept the gravel from spilling into the grass. When the woman reached it, it stopped her. She began raising and lowering the handles of her wheelbarrow, trying to maneuver the front wheel over the path's curb.

Valjean didn't hesitate. "Stay here, I'll be right back," he said over his shoulder to Cosette, as he stood up from their bench and hurried over to help.

Cosette had always been very obedient, but she didn't like being too far from her papa in public, so rather than stay put, she rose too and followed along after him. Valjean went straight over to the woman struggling with her wheelbarrow, gripped the front edge of it, and lifted it easily over the curb and into the path for her.

"Why, thank you, monsieur," the woman said, smiling. "This old wheelbarrow is too heavy for me somedays. Might I offer you a crêpe for your trouble?"

Valjean and Cosette looked and saw that the inside of wheelbarrow was covered with a clean white tablecloth, and laid across it were rows of small strawberry crêpes. Cosette was surprised, but Valjean understood that this was probably how the woman made her living.

"I know it seems strange," she went on, "selling food of a wheelbarrow, but I can assure you that these crêpes are as delicious as those you'll find in any shop in Paris." She pulled a napkin from her apron pocket and laid a crêpe on it. "Here, try one as a free sample."

"No, no, madame," Valjean interrupted. "Let me pay you for it. I must insist."

Valjean and Cosette didn't always visit the park at the same time, and neither did the woman, so they didn't see each other every day. But from then on, they saw each other often – two or three times a week – and every time, Valjean would help the woman lift her wheelbarrow over the curb. At first, she tried to give him one of the sweets from her wheelbarrow, free of charge, to thank him, but he never accepted it, and eventually, she gave up offering. Often Valjean did buy one of whatever she was selling that day – a macaroon or a fruit tarte – but he never ate it himself. He always gave it to Cosette. The woman was right: every sweet that she sold from her wheelbarrow tasted just as good as anything store-bought.

"Thank you, mademoiselle," she said to Cosette one day, after Cosette had complimented her _pain au chocolat_. "I've always liked to cook. You know, when I was your age, I dreamed about having a fine pastry shop in the _premier arrondissement_ , where I would do nothing but make desserts all the live-long day. But this old wheelbarrow..." She looked down at it and sighed. "...is the closest I've ever gotten. But I'm not complaining. As long as I don't have to sell matches anymore, I'm not complaining."

As months went by, Valjean and Cosette eventually learned a bit more about the woman. She was married, and her husband had a decent job, but they had little ones at home, and this wheelbarrow business was not just her hobby, but an important source of income for her family.

Their small talk was pleasant, but always brief. Valjean, as a rule, never volunteered information about himself or Cosette to anyone. He never told the woman their names, nor did she ever tell them hers. They addressed her simply as madame, and she called them monsieur and mademoiselle. Sometimes, as a joke, Cosette liked to refer to the woman as Madame Wheelbarrow. "Shall we go to the park now, Papa?" she would ask Valjean. "Perhaps we'll see Madame Wheelbarrow."

Valjean and Cosette passed by a patisserie on their walk to and from church every Sunday, and one winter day when Cosette was fifteen, Valjean paused in front of their window display and asked her if she would like something.

"No, thank you, Papa," she answered. "You know, these aren't as good as Madame Wheelbarrow's. I can't wait until spring is here and she's selling things in the park again." On the autumn day when Valjean Cosette had last seen her, she'd told them that she didn't keep up her wheelbarrow business through the winter – she couldn't, she said, for nobody frequented the park in cold weather, and navigating her wheelbarrow over snow and ice was almost impossible. "Well, madame, I suppose this is _au revoir_ until springtime," Valjean had said, tipping his hat to her.

One summer afternoon when Cosette was sixteen, she and Valjean were nearing the park bench where they usually sat, and the woman was already there, struggling to lift the wheelbarrow over the curb by herself. "Good heavens," Valjean muttered, catching sight of her, "she's about to overturn it." And he left Cosette's side – which he virtually never did when they were out walking – and ran forward to help.

"Oh, monsieur, you came just in time," the woman said, as he caught the edge of her wheelbarrow and straightened it for her. She laughed a bit and added, "You are late, you know!"

Wheelbarrows fall into ruts, and so too do people with habits that they grow used to. Cosette got so used to seeing Madame Wheelbarrow that she eventually stopped paying attention to her. When she was seventeen, she and Marius caught each other's eyes in the park, and they first met secretly in her garden a few nights later. With all the tumultuous events that followed – the barricades rising and falling, Marius's injury and recovery, their wedding, Valjean's death – Cosette forgot all about Madame Wheelbarrow until one autumn day months later, when the trees of the park were all aflame with reds and oranges, and she and Marius were walking through it together.

They came around a curb in the path, and there she was with her wheelbarrow, struggling to lift it over the curb. Cosette stopped walking.

"Good heavens," she whispered. "Madame Wheelbarrow."

Marius looked puzzled. "Madame... _who_?" he asked, but Cosette had already left his side and run forward to help. It took both of them, but together she and the woman lifted the wheelbarrow over the curb and set it down in the path.

The woman started to say thank you, but she stopped when she looked up and saw Cosette's face. "Why, mademoiselle, it's you!" she exclaimed. "I haven't seen you in weeks." She had never seen Cosette without Valjean before, and now, she looked beyond her, expecting to find him. "And where's your father today?"

Cosette took a deep breath, expecting sadness to choke up her throat so she couldn't speak. But though the woman's words were painful to hear, Cosette found that she wanted to answer them. She wanted so desperately to talk about her father to someone. So few people had known him that she felt so alone in grieving him. Sometimes, it seemed like nobody in the whole world even noticed that he'd died, besides her and Marius.

"My papa passed away," she said, her voice soft but steady, "a few weeks ago."

The woman's hand flew to her mouth. "Oh, mademoiselle," she gasped, "I – I'm so terribly sorry. I had no idea. I hadn't seen him here in the park for some time... I thought the two of you had moved. I never thought – oh, I'm so sorry."

Marius had caught up with them, and Cosette turned to him and explained, "We always saw... oh dear, I don't even know your name, madame. My papa and I used to call you Madame Wheelbarrow, sometimes. We always saw her here in the park, and Papa always used to help her lift her wheelbarrow over this curb."

"I know it looks small," the woman put in, "but it can be quite tricky to get the front wheel over it. I never even asked him to, but he _always_ did it. He had been helping me with it for _years_. I got so used to seeing him that I... I suppose I thought he would always be here in the park. Oh, I'm sorry, mademoiselle. I must be upsetting you."

Cosette smiled, though her eyes were bright with unshed tears. Marius squeezed her hand. "No, no, not at all," she said, hastily dabbing at her eyes with her handkerchief. "I'm glad to hear you speak of him so fondly."

Marius knew he wasn't as strong as his father-in-law had been, but he gripped the front edge of the wheelbarrow and lifted it experimentally. "Well, this isn't so heavy," he said. "Perhaps I can help you with it from now on."

The woman smiled at him. "Why, thank you, monsieur. I'd appreciate that." She glanced back at Cosette, at the matching wedding bands on her and Marius's hands, and said, "Goodness, to think you're already of an age to be married. I can remember seeing you sitting on that bench with your father when you were just a child. Here, let me give you a crêpe – no charge, in memory of your father."

Cosette looked inside her wheelbarrow, and there was the same old, clean white tablecloth, lined with small strawberry crêpes – the same food, Cosette suddenly remembered with a sad pang, that she'd been selling on the day they first met her.

"No, no, you must let me pay for it," Marius insisted. "He would've wanted that." His words made Cosette smile through her sadness, for she knew that was indeed exactly what her father would've wanted.

The next Sunday, Cosette felt ready, for the first time, to visit her father's grave by herself. He'd wanted to be buried under no name at all – neither his real name, nor any of his aliases – and she and Marius had respected his wishes. His grave in the corner of the cemetery was still unmarked, but as she stood over it now, Cosette knew, for the first time, what she wanted his inscription to say. They would arrange to have a small stone erected, and it would read, _If every soul to whom he had shown some kindness could come by his grave and leave a blossom, then he would sleep beneath a wilderness of flowers._

 **FIN**


End file.
